Natures medicine?

Illinois may debate medical marijuana again next year

Untitled Document
Grafton resident Jamie Clayton participated in a
study from 2003 to 2005 with 50 others suffering from peripheral
neuropathy, a painful nerve disorder that often affects people with
HIV/AIDS. According to the researchers, patients who smoked
three marijuana cigarettes each day for one week reported a decrease in
pain. “I was amazed at the benefit,” Clayton
says. Not only did the marijuana help ease the discomfort,
but Clayton, 51, also gained 10 pounds when his appetite increased, and he
was able to rely less on heavier painkillers. Now back in Illinois, which
passed one of the nation’s first medical-marijuana laws but failed to
implement it, Clayton must now settle for a prescription for Marinol
— an FDA-approved marijuana substitute that contains THC —
whose effect he describes as minimal. Clayton, who doesn’t support the legalization
of recreational marijuana use, quietly lobbied state legislators this past
year to support a measure that would have decriminalized the use of
cannabis for people with certain illnesses. But, on a mostly party-line
vote, the bill — sponsored by state Sen. John Cullerton, D-Chicago
— failed to even to pass out of the Senate. “The fact that it got a floor vote was a
huge step forward for us,” says Dan Bernath, a spokesman for the
Marijuana Policy Project, based in Washington, D.C. Bernath says he expects legislation to be
reintroduced in the Legislature in 2008, although he doesn’t yet know
who might sponsor the new bill. It’s unclear whether the bill will
gain traction during a campaign year when it was unsuccessful during an
election off-year. As part of the effort to educate the public before
the medical-marijuana issue is revisited during the next legislative
session, several groups have organized free statewide screenings of a
documentary that explores the marijuana-as-medicine controversy. Partially funded by the Legislature-supported
Illinois Humanities Council, the film, Waiting
to Inhale, will be shown in six cities across
the state starting this week. The Springfield screening takes place at 6:30
p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 14, at the Hoogland Center for the Arts, 420 S. Sixth
St. The film’s director, Jed Riffe, will moderate a panel discussion
immediately after the screening. Marijuana was legal in the U.S. from 1860 to 1937 and
until the 1940s was included in the U.S.
Pharmacopeia, a listing of drugs published by
the organization of the same name, which sets quality standards for drugs
approved in this country. Illinois’ medical-marijuana bill has been
on the books since 1978. A dozen other states — Alaska, California,
Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island,
Vermont, and Washington — have also passed medical-marijuana laws. U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., also interviewed for
Waiting, says
that marijuana has been stigmatized mostly for its cultural implications:
its association with African-American jazz musicians and young hippies. The AIDS epidemic of the 1980s reinvigorated the
discussion of medical marijuana. HIV/AIDS patients discovered that
marijuana was effective in combating symptoms of AIDS, including nausea,
appetite loss, pain, and depression. “The activist community — that had at
first been gay activists, then AIDS activists — some of them became
marijuana activists,” says Dr. Donald Abrams, who oversaw the
University of California, San Francisco, study in which Clayton
participated. Advocates for medical cannabis use point to
scientific studies demonstrating that several of the 60-or-so chemicals
called cannabinoids contained in marijuana, including THC, can relieve
symptoms and chronic pain associated with HIV/AIDS, glaucoma, epilepsy,
multiple sclerosis, cancer, and other disorders characterized by nausea and
spastic muscles. “I’ve discovered that a few tokes and the
spasticity just calms right down,” says Yvonne Westbrook, a multiple
sclerosis patient featured in the film. Dr. Christopher Fichtner, a University of Chicago
psychiatry professor and former mental-health director for the Illinois
Department of Human Services, says that the medical-marijuana debate has
turned into a battle over states’ rights. John Walker, director of the Illinois Compassion
Action Network, says that even though lawmakers have been slow to respond,
most citizens support medical marijuana. As evidence, his group cites a
2002 Harris Interactive poll showing support from 80 percent of people
nationwide for medical marijuana. Walker concedes that passing a medical-cannabis law
will be difficult during an important election year, but he says that his
aim is to teach people about the medical benefits of marijuana. “We’re still reeling from defeat, but
certainly we wouldn’t want to sit and do nothing next year,” he
says. “A lot of times, people hear the word
‘marijuana’ and they giggle. We need to reframe the debate and
educate people.” Contact R.L. Nave at rnave@illinoistimes.com